Cyber-Activist John Perry Barlow to Open Conference on New Internet Extensions

July 21, 2011

SAN FRANCISCO, July 21, 2011 /PRNewswire/ — Internet pioneer, cyber-activist and former Grateful Dead lyricist John Perry Barlow will keynote the .Nxt conference on new Internet extensions in San Francisco on 25 August.

Barlow is renowned for his vigorous defense of the Internet’s openness. He penned ‘A Declaration of the Independence of Cyberspace’ in 1996, established the Electronic Frontier Foundation (EFF) in 1990 and has written extensively on the Internet’s expansion and development for Wired Magazine and The New York Times. Barlow is also a fellow with the Berkman Center for Internet and Society at Harvard Law School.

Earlier this year, Barlow was discovered by a new generation of Internet users when his address to a panel of CEOs at the eG8 in Paris went viral. He was arguing that placing greater controls on the use of content was the wrong way for them to continue to make profits in the Internet era.

Barlow will give the keynote at the three-day .Nxt conference (http://dot-nxt.com), which gathers experts on the Internet’s domain name system from across the business, technical and legal spheres in the SoMa district of San Francisco, where many of the next generation of Internet businesses are being launched.

The conference’s focus will be on the massive expansion of “top-level domains.” Starting in January 2012, anyone will be allowed to apply for their own dot-com under whatever name they wish. New extensions will range from generic names (dot-shop) and communities (dot-gay) to geographic names (dot-berlin) and brand names (dot-canon).

The .Nxt conference will answer questions about the application rules and process, the business models, the market, the law and trademark protections, the role of governments, running successful auctions and other related topics.

Barlow — who has long argued that the Internet’s openness provides the space necessary for new explosions of creativity — will provide an enlightening perspective on this next chapter in the development of the Internet.